Since publication of Manuel's The Fourth World: An Indian Reality (1974), the term Fourth World became synonymous with stateless, poor, and marginal nations.[4] Since 1979, think tanks such as the Center for World Indigenous Studies have used the term in defining the relationships between ancient, tribal, and non-industrial nations and modern industrialised nation-states.[5] With the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, communications and organizing amongst Fourth World peoples have accelerated in the form of international treaties between aboriginal nations for the purposes of trade, travel, and security.[6]
In the Indian left movement, Dr. M. P. Parameswaran's ideas on the fourth world[7] caused widespread debates, which eventually led to his expulsion from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 2004.[8][9]